When compassion goes awry

From the time we are very little girls, we women have been taught to "be nice." It's something our parents told us, our teachers told us and even strangers told us to do. In addition to the social conditioning most women receive, most of us are on some kind of conscious spiritual path. Whether you attend a church or temple, meditate regularly or go to your weekly yoga class, most of us participate in some kind of belief system that is intended to better ourselves. And one of the most essential aspects of any spiritual belief system is being kind to others.


We adopt these attitudes of being nice and being kind and we work actively to cultivate compassion because we believe that is what good people do. This is how great humanitarian works are erected and this is the foundation from which many esteemed social activists operate. Kindness and compassion are essential not only to our own happiness but to the betterment of the world.

However, what I'm noticing in several clients, and what's become more and more clear to me as I grow, is that many of us take compassion too far. We don't have solid boundaries when it comes to kindness; we don't know when and how to say "no" and we use our spiritual paths as an excuse for allowing others to take advantage of us. In our quests to be nice to everyone, we forget to be nice to ourselves.

Pema Chodron, one of my favorite Buddhist nuns and spiritual teachers, calls this inability to set healthy boundaries Idiot Compassion. I sometimes suffer from Idiot Compassion, or at least I did until I became aware of it recently. Perhaps you do too. Idiot Compassion is, quite simply, enabling another person to be mean or violent or disrespectful towards you out of a skewed definition that the person needs your compassion more than they need your boundaries.

An extreme example of Idiot Compassion would be the woman who stays friends with the alcoholic who lies to her and manipulates her, believing if she left her friend's side that friend would crumble. Or the woman who continuously allows her husband to scream at her and berate her and then excuses his behavior by saying that he's just had a hard week at work. There are subtle examples too. The friend who always shows up late, even when promptness is a necessity, but you don't say anything because you know how busy his life is. The person who calls you with an "emergency" when she knows you've got an important deadline, but you want to be a good friend so you let her take up your afternoon with her drama (and isn't this her third emergency of the month?) The brother who "borrows" money from you and then never pays you back but you decide not to say anything because you know how broke he is.

These are all examples of Idiot Compassion. I'm sure you can think of more.

There are two distinct ways to tell real compassion from Idiot Compassion.

1. Real compassion feels good. It makes you feel free and helpful and full of purpose. (Like helping your elderly neighbor carry her groceries into her house). Idiot Compassion does not feel good. It feels subtly defeating, like something is being taken from you.

2. Real compassion, upon reflection, makes you feel uplifted and joyful. Idiot Compassion, upon reflection, makes you feel like you should make an excuse about why you are allowing the bad behavior. Real compassion doesn't need any kind of explanation; Idiot Compassion is full of excuses.

Other signs that you are participating in Idiot Compassion:

-You tell a more assertive friend about the situation and she tells you that you should speak up.

-You feel bad every time you interact with this person but are not sure why.

-You find yourself wanting to avoid a certain person because you feel a sense of guilt, fear or obligation whenever you talk to him/her.

If you suspect that you may be participating in Idiot Compassion, then the next step is to learn how to set up some healthy boundaries. In Barbara Brennan's book Light Emerging, Brennan calls the tendency to not set healthy boundaries "participating in a negative contract." Once you've identified the people with whom you are giving Idiot Compassion, then your next step is to set up better boundaries with them, a process Brennan calls "creating positive contracts."

This week, make a list of people to whom you suspect you may be serving as a doormat. (Your Idiot Compassion recepients, if you will.) Next week, I will show you a simple and effective way to dissolve your negative contracts and how to create positive contracts.

Still not sure whether the compassion you're dishing out is helpful or hurtful? Take this interesting and fun quiz to see how often you may be participating in Idiot Compassion.